Early Interview Training

Why you should start interview training in Year 11.

Every year we meet a lot of students expressing their regret and disappointment for leaving Interview preparation until the actual period when the interview offers are made. The big issue with this is that quite often there is simply not enough time for adequate preparation between the time when the interview offers are made and the actual interview date.

The common concern expressed to us by students every year...

"I spent so much time preparing for the UMAT / UCAT and Year 12 exams, and now that I got a medical interview offer I have very limited time to prepare. What should I do now? How will I outperform my interview competitors?"

The medical interview is the final stage of assessing and ranking a range of personal competencies as well as student’s ability to undertake studies in the respective medical fields. Interview for undergraduate medical entry is a personal assessment of who the candidate is, what they have to offer and how suitable they will be for the course. Just as with the UMAT / UCAT, we cannot stress enough that students cannot underestimate the medical interview or take it too lightly. Furthermore, it is a highly competitive forum where the student will be assessed against other candidates who have not only aimed as hard to achieve their goals but are also just as sincere and strong-minded in their desire to be interviewed successfully.

BENEFITS OF AN EARLY INTERVIEW TRAINING

When being interviewed for a medical school, you need to be competitive and stand out from the crowd. You will need to demonstrate psychological maturity and interpersonal characteristic favoured by medical schools. Interviewers will look for someone who can show honesty, integrity, compassion, empathy, and altruism. Furthermore, interviewers will pay attention to you being a respectful, sensitive, and understanding of others. You will need to come across as an individual with strong self-discipline and work ethic, as well as someone who is persistence, resilient, reliable and accountable. Furthermore, through various interview scenario questions, you will need to demonstrate good judgement, critical and analytical skills.

Learning and further development of the above-mentioned attributes takes time and practice. Hence, the earlier you get in the interview mind frame, the more beneficial it will be for you. Other reasons for early interview preparation include:

Certain underlying communication weaknesses, like social anxiety or general nervousness, can take longer than a day, a week or even a month to address and strengthen. So, the earlier you find out about them and how to address these, the better it will be for you.